


there's an art

by BlueFingers (POPP_Writing_Group)



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007), Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Manipulation, Medical Trauma, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 18:08:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/POPP_Writing_Group/pseuds/BlueFingers
Summary: I'm so sorry for doing this to you Ratchet lmaooRatchet gets uhh Kind Of Messed Up





	there's an art

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suna_scribbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suna_scribbles/gifts).

> This is a birthday present for Suna morethanmeetstheass on Tumblr!! I'm sure you all know about her blitzbee series, but if you don't, hop on over to suna_scribbles and check it out <3 
> 
> Many, MANY thanks to Storm (iacon-stargazer and storm-mun on Tumblr) for beta and characterization suggestions!

Ratchet onlined his optics.

Or rather, he tried to, and found them unresponsive, and then very  _ carefully  _ didn’t panic. A medic’s optics were usually rather hard to disable, and he could tell they were still  _ in  _ his head, so they hadn’t been ripped out or anything of the sort. That narrowed his options. 

Someone very talented, with skill that could only be gotten from years of training at the Academy, had gone inside his processor and gotten past the firewalls and expertly deleted lines of code, leaving him sightless. 

Ratchet stayed very still and considered. 

He was lying down on some sort of medical slab, or something that felt like one, and there were heavy restraints around his wrists and legs. There were sounds of shifting next to him on his left, as if a bot were in uneasy stasis. To his right, steady venting. Perhaps he was in a medical center of some kind?

For a moment, Ratchet allowed himself the foolishness of hoping that he might have been in one massive hallucination and dreamed up the entirety of the Autobot-Decepticon war, and was only just now awaking. Perhaps when his optics came online, he would see First Aid at her terminal and Medix following the hoverbot around and Pharma would turn to Ratchet with that smug look and say, well, Ratchet, haven’t you been dreaming long enough?

The fantasy was summarily dispelled. Ratchet was in an unfamiliar situation, and he had no time for silly wishing. Of course, the most likely answer to this puzzle was Knock Out, however ridiculous it might seem to picture the fool being skilled enough to disable Ratchet’s sight. But there were no other medics on Earth. There was no one else who could possibly have done it.

He tested the restraints with one servo, and then both. These were obviously medical grade restraints, meant for holding disruptive patients in place. Great. 

“You’re awake,” came a voice, from across the room. “Hello, Ratchet.”

Ratchet stiffened. “Who is this?”

The voice chuckled. “Rude. I could tell who  _ you  _ were from the second I pulled you through.”

Ratchet was silent a moment. The voice was eerily familiar, but lingered just outside of his reach of memory. It bothered him. 

“Whatever I’ve done to hack you off, let’s talk about it,” he said cautiously. “Unless you’re some sort of freelance Decepticon agent, in which case you can frag  _ all  _ the way off.”

“Hm.” A short pause. “Do you know why I disabled your optics?”

_ Glitch.  _ “Why?”

“I didn’t want you seeing me just yet,” the mech said, a incredulous little chuckle working itself into the middle of the sentence, as if they couldn’t believe that Ratchet wouldn’t know why. “But also, I’m curious as to how well you can figure out what’s going on without the use of your sight.” Another pause. “Call it a scientific interest.”

“Who  _ are  _ you,” Ratchet repeated, his patience expiring. “Tell me your designation.”

“That would be, hm, counterproductive.” The mech chuckled again. “And you won’t understand, not right away.”

“Fragging glitch,” Ratchet said, out loud this time.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get going on the first part of this experiment, note your reactions, and then we can move on to activating your sight again. I have a theory, Ratchet, and I want to test it. Now,  _ listen!” _

Furious, Ratchet strained his audials. The mech’s footsteps came closer and closer until they stopped, with an ominous  _ clunk,  _ next to his berth. Ratchet calculated out the  weight of the steps to the pacing ratio in his head, determined that the bot was around his size, average height and weight, not especially fast. His EM field was pulled in so tightly that Ratchet could barely detect it, but of what he  _ could  _ detect he could do little with. It was cold and clinical, the tiny wisps of emotion that managed to reach out nothing but bland spikes of interest as Ratchet shifted closer to try and detect more.

“According to the data, you will have an emotional response to this one,” said the mech, the sounds of his hands busy at the berth to Ratchet’s left. “I’ll wake him up, shall I?”

A click. A whirr of onlining optics. Ratchet’s audials, dialed to the highest setting, even picked up the faint booting up sound of the mysterious patient’s HUD. 

“Don’t speak,” warned the mech. “That’ll be hard for this one,” he said, in Ratchet’s direction, his voice suggesting that he was telling a joke. “All right, you two. This little guy’s processor is set to shut down in three minutes exactly. I’ll be back in five.”

And the footsteps faded away, leaving Ratchet blind, helpless, and unable to move. The mech beside him, however, was in a much worse state.

“What did he  _ mean _ it’s set to shut down?!”

The voice was high toned and strangely modulated; it didn’t sound like any Cybertronian vocal system Ratchet had ever been familiar with. That didn’t matter, of course, not when this mysterious mech was apparently scheduled to die in three minutes exactly.

“What did-- Am I going to die? I can’t! I was just at the base, I was  _ just--” _

“Calm down,” Ratchet ordered. First things first, the mech needed to get his panic levels under control-- if there was even the slightest chance that reducing the stress on the brain module could help, it was a chance they needed to take. “Listen to me, listen to me  _ very  _ closely.”

There was a short, incredulous wheeze. “I’m not going to-- you sound  _ exactly  _ like that whacked-off circuit fryer who knocked me out, I don’t even know who you are and I’m going to  _ die!” _

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Ratchet said, his processor flitting wildly from possibility to possibility. “I can help you. I can-- you need to  _ listen,  _ maybe I can guide you through--”

“I don’t want to die, I don’t,” the mech said, his voice beginning to shred into sobs. “Help me! Tell me what to do!”

“You need to-- run a diagnostic, fast as you can,” Ratchet instructed. “See what system is going to shut off your processor, and tell me.”

“I-- um.” A pause, punctuated by panicked noises, and the mech reported, “There’s a virus called TECHMA draining power to my spark supplant. It’s going to ch-charge the protof-form and kill the process-- processor, and-- I--” He sniffled. “I don’t know how to sh-shut it off.”

“Hold on.” Ratchet shook his head. “Draining power to your  _ what?” _

“S-spark supplant?”

“What in the pit is a spark supplant?” Ratchet strained at his bonds, trying to listen harder. “That’s not a real thing. I’d know. Tell me what it’s draining!”

“It’s draining my fragging _spark supplant!”_ the mech screamed. “What kinda bot doesn’t know what a spark supplant is? Who _are _you?”

“My name is Ratchet, I’m a medic,” Ratchet snapped. “I  _ need  _ to know what the virus is draining so I can tell you how to disable it!”

There was a long, long pause. Ratchet’s could have screamed; he nearly  _ felt  _ the mech’s seconds ticking away.

“R-Ratchet?” the mech said, finally, and the raw disbelief in his voice almost bowled Ratchet over. “Doc-bot, what-- what happened to you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ratchet said sharply. If the mech knew of him, that was nothing to spend precious time on. “Please, tell me what the virus is draining. Spark supplant-- is that something you’ve added on? How is it related to your processor? How would you shut it off?”

“Ratchet!” the mech said again, and he sounded so hopeful Ratchet would have thought he was being unchained from the berth. “You can fix me! Right? You’re all weird looking but you can fix me, you’ll know how to fix m--”

His words cut off in a burst of static.

Ratchet’s spark contracted. “Hey,” he said, knowing what had happened even as his spark continued to deny it. “Hey. Listen to me.  _ Hey. Talk  _ to me, damn it,  _ talk to me!” _

Nothing but more silence greeted him, and Ratchet cursed again, cleanser darting to his blinded eyes before he angrily shut the program down. He hadn’t even known the mech’s name, and he’d died, right next to Ratchet. Ratchet could have  _ fixed  _ him. 

He slammed his helm back against the berth, gritting his dentae. Another death, another failure, and it was  _ his fault.  _ If he’d been able to see, or if he’d known what the mech had meant by “spark supplant” he could have been able to save him. Hell, even if he’d only been free from the restraints-- 

_ No,  _ he told himself.  _ You didn’t put yourself in here. None of this is your fault. _

“Hello,” came the voice of the  _ fragging bastard  _ who  _ had  _ put Ratchet in here. “I’m back-- did it go all right?”

_ “You,”  _ Ratchet snarled. “You  _ killed  _ him.”

“Killed who?” The mech was standing by Ratchet’s berth now, his footsteps having stopped directly in front of him. and Ratchet couldn’t even bring himself to be intimidated. He strained against the bars holding him in place, feeling them creak and groan. 

“Oh, that’s right,” the mech said, a hint of amusement coloring his voice, and Ratchet could have ripped his voxbox out, given the chance. It was strange to have the urge crowding his mind when faced with anyone except Megatron. “You don’t know who he is.”

“I don’t know-- of  _ course  _ I don’t know! I can’t see him!” 

“Hm,” said the mech. “Well. First experiment is over, I see no reason not to let you have your sight back.” 

“What--”

“Hold still,” the mech ordered, and Ratchet felt himself slipping into blackness before he could react.

When he booted back online, his vision came with him. Ratchet swam into consciousness cursing, his hands instinctively sweeping up to grasp his head. They stopped, as he should have expected, at the restraints. He pulled on them harder, and the table buckled.

“Whoa, now,” came the strangely familiar voice, and Ratchet whipped his head around to behold the face of his newest enemy. “I would hate for you to expend all your energy breaking out just to have me put you under again.”

The mech was an eerie mix of black and green shades of plating, his paint a scratched matte rather than freshly kept up on. His optics glowed a persistent red, and the chevron set on his helm cemented the whole picture in Ratchet’s mind. 

“No,” he said, shaking his head. 

“Indeed,” said the other mech, and tilted his head. “Does this trouble you, Ratchet?”

“Who are you?” Ratchet asked, stubbornly pushing away the idea that the mech could  _ possibly  _ be-- “Why do you have my frametype?”

“Please. I thought you were cleverer than this,” said the other mech, shaking his helm, and tapped the Autobot symbol on his chest, upper left-- directly where Ratchet’s own lay. “Not enough for you? What about this?” He transformed his right servo into an exact replica of Ratchet’s weld tool, held it teasingly close to Ratchet’s face. “Come on, doctor. Think.”

_ “No,” _ Ratchet said angrily. “Who was the mech you killed? Why did he know me?”

The mech pulled his hand away and transformed it back into a servo. “That is a good question. Here.” He moved away from Ratchet’s vision, and returned, wheeling a berth; he cranked Ratchet’s up so that he was restrained against a slightly more vertical slab. “Take a look, see if you recognize him.”

Ratchet looked, against his better judgement. On the berth lay the limp frame of a small yellow mech-- smaller than Arcee, smaller than Medix even. He was painted with two black racing stripes, and his frame looked-- different. It looked  _ wrong.  _ Ratchet couldn’t have said for sure, he realized, if the mech was even Cybertronian.

“Who is he?” he demanded.

“Tch,” the other-- doctor, Ratchet decided, that was  _ all  _ he’d call him-- said. “Disappointing, Ratchet. But don’t worry. We’re going to do this  _ again _ .”

“No,” Ratchet gasped. 

“Want to see where I get my mecha?” the doctor said, a small smile teasing at his mouth. 

“I’m going to--” Ratchet growled, and yanked at the restraints.

“Shh, shh, this is the best part,” the doctor admonished, and wheeled Ratchet’s berth around briskly, allowing him to see a large structure that, to Ratchet’s immediate glance, looked like a larger version of the spacebridge they kept in the home base. His tanks turned, immediately classifying this strange mech as a threat not only to him, but to the entire mission. Optimus  _ had  _ to know, no matter what it took for Ratchet to escape.

“All right,” the doctor said, turning to the spacebridge-looking machine. “I haven’t really perfected the process, but the universes are  _ distinct,  _ the separation can be  _ felt,  _ and all you have to do--” he twisted a dial, pressed several buttons-- “is feel around for a different one, and pull someone through.” He turned to smile at Ratchet. “I’ve tweaked this, set it for your spark signature, but with a few, eh, wider parameters. It won’t bring in any more of you, Unicron forbid-- that was my problem with getting you the first time, used my own spark signature as a test. It  _ will _ hone in on mecha that you-- or versions of you-- have strong emotional connections with. Make this more fun.”

“You’re insane,” Ratchet said, shaking his head.

“Insane?” the doctor repeated. “No, no,  _ no,  _ Ratchet, I am a  _ scientist,  _ and this is my field. Wouldn’t you go to any lengths to find your answers you so desperately want? I assume you have a Megatron of your own over there. What would you do to defeat him, hm?”

Ratchet stiffened and looked away. The memory of the synth-en, hot and unnaturally slick as it entered his lines, passed through his head. “It’s different. You  _ killed  _ that mech--”

“Him?” the doctor asked, seemingly surprised. “He’s not dead yet. Can’t you see he hasn’t greyed? I’m holding his spark steady, even if his processor’s been fried.”

“You--  _ why?” _

“So I can  _ harvest  _ him,” the mech explained, patient. “So I can see what’s underneath his hood, and repurpose his wonderful little  _ spark supplant  _ and use it for  _ my  _ Autobots. And I’ll do the same for everyone else I get through here-- not you, of course, because  _ you,  _ Ratchet, you’re  _ me--” _

_ “I’m not.  _ You’re a monster and a sadist,” Ratchet snarled. “So you’re kidnapping mecha to kill and harvest, what else?”

The mech smiled. “Oh, I have some scientific interests elsewhere, but-- let’s save that. Shh, shh now! I’ve almost got this. Different universe, of course, and  _ I  _ don’t know which one. There’s infinites, you know.” He faced the portal machine again. “Infinites.”

“Different universes,” Ratchet scoffed. “That’s  _ ridiculous.” _

“Your eyes simply haven’t been opened,” the doctor said, not turning around. 

“Get slagged.”

“That particular result may depend on who comes through the bridge,” the mech said, sounding delighted. 

Ratchet leaned forward as much as he could, and felt the berth around his wrist restraints buckle, once more; he tested it as subtly as he could and determined that it would break if he were willing to sacrifice a lot of the plating and wires in his wrists as he pulled free. The doctor had his back to Ratchet-- it was a perfect opportunity.

But before he could put the plan into place, a white mech came stumbling out of the opening portal. He looked about Ratchet’s height, elegantly painted but chipped, and had swords holstered on his hips and back. He fell to the ground as he passed through, looking dazed and confused. 

“Wh--” he said, and looked up at Ratchet. “Ratch. . .”

_ “Good,”  _ the doctor said, pulled out a medical prod and shocked him into limp unconsciousness.

Ratchet closed his eyes as the doctor bent down to work on unclipping the swords from the mech’s body. “Please,” he said. “Don’t.”

“So you recognize him?” the doctor asked eagerly, looking up. “You have an emotional connection with him?”

_ “No.  _ I’ve never seen him before. Your stupid machine is faulty. Let him go, I’ll--”

“Hm,” the mech said, lifting the white bot and dumping him onto another medical berth. “It must be another version of you that has the emotional connection. That’s all right, I suppose, you didn’t recognize the other mech either. And no,” he added, holding a hand up at Ratchet as he strapped the white mech in. “I need him.”

“Use Decepticons from my--” Ratchet struggled to say it. “My  _ universe.  _ There are hundreds of them. Megatron had Shockwave create split-spark clones for. . .  _ volume  _ in war. Please, don’t kill this mech.”

“Are you sure you don’t know him?” the bastard asked, squinting at Ratchet.

“I  _ don’t,  _ but he hasn’t done anything. He doesn’t deserve to die!” Ratchet looked over at the unconscious mech. His frame wasn’t unusual, his face perhaps a bit harsh but softened by sleep. His helm was decorated with high, elegant finials, his fingertips were slightly pointed-- much like Arcee’s-- and his breastplate was abraded, as if something had been there and was now ripped away. There was a story there, a life-- something the other mech would  _ take away  _ and there was nothing Ratchet could do,  _ again.  _

“I don’t want hundreds of the same mech,” the doctor said dismissively. “Maybe one or two of them, to see how well Shockwave perfected cloning in your universe. But where’s the  _ diversity  _ in clones?”

“I--”

“Shh now. Watch a master at work, Ratchet.”

Furious, Ratchet tensed against the berth as the doctor set about opening the white mech’s chest panels to reveal his spark. He didn’t  _ want  _ to look, but he found his eyes drawn to the strangeness of it, the circular and faceted structure. It clicked, for the first time, that this really was someone from a different universe entirely. Which meant that the other mech had also been, that his spark supplant had been a real thing, something that Ratchet needed to tell him how to fix, and if he had told him-- if he had been able to help him-- if he had  _ known-- _

“Look at this one,” the other doctor breathed in awe, and Ratchet was reminded, once again, that it was  _ this  _ slagging waste of fuel that he needed to focus on. “His--”

“Enough,” Ratchet snapped. “For Primus’ sake. Either kill him or let him live, but he’s not your  _ toy  _ to play with.”

The doctor dropped the tool he’d been holding, and sighed as he turned toward Ratchet again. “You’re really becoming more trouble than you’re worth.”

“Kill me then.” 

“We’ve already gone over this.”

Ratchet, for the life of him, didn’t know  _ why  _ he’d said that and was still trying to process it. “You’re just going to let him die on an examination table unconscious with his spark out? He’s a warrior. He deserves a better death.”

Maybe he was thinking of Cliffjumper, maybe not. But the the mech’s face reminded him of so many of the old patients he’d used to have back in Cybertron in the old days, who would show up to his clinic all bravado and bluster and end up only wanting a cube of fuel or a mild repair. For some reason, Ratchet could place this one’s face among them despite never having seen him before in his life. It hurt.

“That’s the first reasonable thing you’ve said all day,” the other doctor declared, interrupting Ratchet. “Let’s wake him up.”

“What?” Ratchet said, but the mech was already stiffening, gasping, and onlining his optics as the doctor forcibly brought him out of stasis. He immediately began wrenching at the restraints, and the doctor rubbed his forehelm, turning to Ratchet.

“Things were much less complicated with the little one, hm?” he asked, and turned to the white mech. “All right. Name, rank, and faction, please.”

“Who the hell are  _ you?”  _ the mech asked.

“My designation is Ratchet,” the doctor said smugly.

_ “No,  _ it’s  _ not,”  _ Ratchet interjected. 

The white mech stared at the two of them. “Ratchet--?”

“Name, rank, and faction!” the doctor commanded. “Come on. Quickly.”

“Drift,” the mech said, surprisingly obliging. “Third in command of the  _ Lost Light.  _ Or. . . I mean, I suppose I  _ was _ . Faction is, well. That’s complicated too. Are you  _ actually  _ Ratchet?” 

“Depends,” the doctor said, putting a hand to his chin as an eager light shone in his optics. “What is your relation to  _ your  _ Ratchet?”

Drift was silent for a moment and looked away. “This is sick. Who  _ are  _ you?”

“Interesting,” the doctor murmured. “Well, no dancing around it then, Drift; I’m about to kill you.”

Drift’s eyes showed no sign of surprise or apprehension. “And?”

“And your body parts will be used to help the great Autobot regime,” the doctor said, removing a large buzzsaw from the wall behind Ratchet’s berth. 

“Like  _ hell  _ they will. You’re no  _ Ratchet,”  _ Drift snapped. “You think I’m going to lie here and let you dissect me?”

“Dissect you?” the doctor repeated, his buzzsaw slowly lowering. “Oh. . . now,  _ there’s  _ a concept. I wonder what else is different under there besides your spark?”

Drift glanced down at his exposed spark. “I’m gonna kill you,” he warned.

“Aw. I see why my alternate must have the emotional connection.” 

“Please,” Ratchet interrupted. “You can’t do this. What does your Optimus have to say about you killing all these mecha?”

Drift glanced at the doctor, as if he too wanted to know the answer. 

“Lord Prime?” the other mech said, looking between the two of them. “He doesn’t give a damn what I do down here as long as it gets him results.” He seemed uncomfortable to be trapped between the gazes of his prisoners, and stepped out of Ratchet’s view. “That’s enough.”

“But--” Ratchet tried again, sensing that this was a topic to pursue.

_ “No!”  _ the doctor snapped, from behind him. “But you’ve reminded me of something, Ratchet. I wasn’t going to try this out on you until a bit later, but you’ve been so annoying. . .” There was a loud clatter. “Give me a moment, and I’ll show you the best thing I’ve gotten so far.”

Oh,  _ Primus.  _ Ratchet offlined his optics in frustration, and just as quickly turned them back on. He glanced over at Drift, who was watching whatever the doctor was doing over behind Ratchet’s berth. 

“Hey, kid,” Ratchet whispered.

“Wh--” Drift said, and startled. 

“I think I can break these,” Ratchet said softly.

Drift’s eyes widened. He glanced down at Ratchet’s wrists, and over to his three swords that lay on a nearby examination table. 

“Know how to handle those?” Ratchet asked lowly, a wry smile splitting his face. “I’m gonna need the bastard dead.”

Drift nodded. 

“Good.” Ratchet focused on his arms, the restraints around them, and the buckled berth beneath  _ those.  _ “Let’s do it.”

“Wait,” Drift said. “What’s your name?”

“Why the--”

“Names are powerful,” Drift said, completely serious. “I’d like to know who I’m fighting with.”

Ratchet sighed. He really didn’t have time for this. “Ratchet.”

Drift’s face dropped into shock.  _ “No.” _

Ratchet could have asked him how he knew Ratchet’s alternate, but he didn’t want to waste time; he redirected power into his arm pistons and set his dentae and prepared to pull.

Then the doctor returned, wheeling another berth, and the sight of who lay on it erased every bit of Ratchet’s determination and strength and will; it was pure shock, pure denial, and horror, horror,  _ horror;  _ it was a terrible draining of anything except the tunnel that crowded his sight, forcing him to take in the limp hands, the offlined optics, the half-retracted mask. His arms relaxed against their will, his optics strained wide, and his vocoder leaked static as he realized who his double had stolen.

“Say hello,” the doctor said, delighted. 

“Optimus,” Ratchet managed, his voice strained quiet.

“Lord Prime would be furious if  _ I _ ever referred to him as such,” the doctor admonished. “Now, Ratchet, I have one more thing I’d like to try out. You see, Drift here  _ is  _ a warrior, and he  _ does  _ deserve a good death. That’s why you’re going to give it to him.”

Ratchet could barely focus on anything else than the still form of his-- of Optimus, in stasis, helpless and vulnerable, but he processed this and turned his head again toward Drift. “You’re mad. I’m not killing-- I’m not killing him.”

“ _ Yes, _ you are.”

“Can we--” Drift tried to say. 

“Shut  _ up,”  _ the doctor snapped.  _ “Ratchet.  _ I am going to set up a killswitch for your Prime’s spark. The killswitch is going to be linked to  _ Drift’s  _ spark. You can stop your  _ Optimus  _ from dying if you decide to kill Drift, or stop Drift from dying if you kill Optimus. If you do nothing, they both die. Hm?”

_ “What?  _ No! I’m not going to do this,” Ratchet said, at the same time that Drift began trying to rip the restraints away from his wrists, tearing the plating and sending rivulets of energon flowing over the metal. His grunts grew more panicked as he began to realize, presumably, that the restraints were not anywhere near breakable.

“Hold still or I’ll knock you out, and then how would you appeal to Ratchet’s better nature?” the doctor said, fiddling with Drift’s open chestplating and attaching wires to the wiring around his spark. Drift was frantic, his optics wide and his dentae bared, even snapping at the doctor’s helm with sharpened fangs. Ratchet could see the harshness of his face now, could see the dangerous warrior he had seemed as he stepped through the portal. None of it mattered now-- as fierce and impressive-looking as he was, he would  _ die  _ here.  _ He would die.  _

“I’m not killing him,” he shouted at the doctor. “Why are you doing this? Why make me choose?”

“Well, because it seems like you already know who you’re going to choose,” the doctor said, lifting his head to smile at Ratchet. “I just want to watch the emotional connections happen. It’s a scientific spectacle you just can’t get anywhere else.”

“Please don’t do this,” Ratchet said, his spark spinning as the doctor crossed the room to attach the other end of the killswitch to Optimus. “God,  _ please,  _ what do I have to do?! You can kill me.  _ You can have me!  _ Please!”

The doctor shook his head, looking irritated. “You really have to harp on that idea, don’t you?” 

As he jacked into Optimus’ chest ports, Ratchet allowed himself the barest hope that perhaps Optimus’ firewalls would reject the mech, that his systems wouldn’t be so easily overpowered; he’d worked on them himself, after all. And for a moment, it did seem like Optimus’ security systems gave the doctor pause. 

But if there was anyone who could challenge Optimus, it was Ratchet, and his double broke through the firewalls relatively quickly. Optimus’ chestplating folded open, revealing his spark and the Matrix, both shining too bright. 

Drift stopped struggling for a moment, staring. Who knew what his version of Optimus was like. Perhaps he’d never seen the Matrix before. 

Ratchet hoped he was spiritual, that the sight would give him a bit of comfort.

_ “There  _ we are,” said the doctor, attaching the killswitch to Optimus. “Whoever dies, I’ll still be taking that Matrix at the end. I’m sure Lord Prime will take good care of it.”

“Bastard,” Ratchet growled.

“Hurtful. All right.” The doctor clapped his hands together. “I’ll give you your toys, Ratchet. Here you are.” He faced Ratchet, came close to his berth-- Ratchet stared at him, wishing his eyes could burn through armor and brain module alike, hatred shooting through his spark. The doctor smiled again, and set two switches in each of his hands. 

“Left button for Drift, right for  _ Optimus. _ Press them when you’ve chosen who you want to die. Let’s set a timer, shall we? To detract from any noble escape attempts. A minute.”

“Wait--” Ratchet said.

“Starting  _ now.” _

Ratchet cursed.  _ “No!” _

“Ticking down, doctor. Choose.”

Ratchet’s processor had automatically begun a countdown when the doctor had first announced it, and he  _ knew  _ the time was going; 56 seconds, and he would have to kill someone. He clenched his fists and began joining Drift in his attempts to break out. 

“ _ Do not,”  _ the doctor snarled, “for Primus’  _ sake,  _ don’t you care about scientific accuracy? Break out of those cuffs and I’ll kill both of them.”

Ratchet cursed loudly as he reached the end of several escape plans; there was no doubt the doctor could activate the killswitch before Ratchet got to him. He would have to kill Drift, because-- because he would  _ have to,  _ because he  _ couldn’t  _ kill Optimus. 41 seconds remained, and Ratchet was panicking.

“Please,” Drift said-- Ratchet didn’t think he could have stood it if the mech had been speaking to him, but his attention was on Ratchet’s double. 

“Ah, so you know who Ratchet will choose, as well,” the doctor said, fascinated.

Drift shut his eyes and slammed his head against the berth, and resumed his attempts to break out. 

34 seconds.

Against his will, Ratchet found his eyes wandering to Optimus. Never once did he consider the idea of killing his Prime, and for some reason he hated that he wouldn’t let himself. He  _ couldn’t  _ kill Drift. He couldn’t kill Drift. He couldn’t. 

But as much as he couldn’t kill Drift, he couldn’t kill Optimus more. 

_ No!  _ he told himself. _ _ He was a doctor-- he had killed enough, hadn’t he killed enough? 

This would be saving Optimus, to kill Drift, the logical side of him shouted. Optimus would say no, of course he would, he would rather die than have someone die for him. Ratchet had often thought before that he would kill anyone, he would do anything to protect his beautiful and self-sacrificing Prime, but. . .  _ this. . .  _

23 seconds. He had done nothing in all that time, accompanied by Drift’s shaking vents and grunts of pain as he struggled to break away-- he hadn’t given up, and it killed Ratchet, it  _ killed  _ him to look at that and know he had to take it away. The other doctor was eerily silent, but Ratchet refused to look at  _ him. _

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, his voice breaking. He turned his head to Drift. “I’m so sorry.”

Drift was a wreck, his arms shredded from trying to escape the restraints, and his vents roaring in clear panic. 15 seconds, and Ratchet’s danger sensors roared high, telling him that  _ Optimus was in danger, Optimus would die.  _ He couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He had to take action, and his action was limited to three choices. 

“Drift--” Ratchet said, helpless. 

_ “Ratchet,”  _ Drift said, his voice shaking.

Ratchet shut his optics, trembling; he told himself that he couldn’t choose, that this wasn’t a fair choice. Opening his eyes again, he forced himself to look at Drift, to memorize his face, his movements, his features and mannerisms. 

“Optimus, forgive me,” he managed, and pressed the left button.

Drift spasmed and jerked on the table and screamed as his spark guttered out, a horrifically alien sound and yet, so familiar; a soft  _ whump  _ of extinguished light, a wet and desperate scratching, and silence. 

Ratchet shuddered. His helm weighted, his frame seized against his will, and he gagged on realizations. Dropping the buttons on the ground, he clenched his hands until the feeling left them, and struggled not to weep.

When he opened his eyes, the doctor was busy dissecting Drift’s abdominals. Ratchet, if he hadn’t seen much worse during the war, could have purged. As it was, he dimly noted that Drift’s blood seemed to be pink,  _ further proving that he was from a different universe, _ and focused on his double.

“You,” he hissed.

“No, I’m afraid it wasn’t,” the mech said, not looking up.

“Did you get--” Ratchet struggled not to choke on the words, hatred clouding his sight. “Did you get your  _ scientific observations _ , then?”

“I did,” the doctor said, finally facing Ratchet with a smile. “You performed excellently, Ratchet. Just like a Decepticon would.”

Ratchet blinked, taken aback. “Just like a-- what?”

“I’m guessing,” the doctor said, putting down his tools and wiping his hands of Drift’s blood, “that in  _ your  _ universe, Decepticons are more competent and less emotionally unstable than they are in ours. Given your offer to let me use them as test subjects, I had originally thought that perhaps in your universe, Decepticons and Autobots were of the same--”

“Never,” Ratchet said.

_ “Don’t  _ interrupt,” the doctor snapped, pointing a blood-smeared finger at him. “But because of how you behaved in this situation, I see it now-- in your universe, Decepticons are Autobots, Autobots are Decepticons. It’s switched.”

“You are making  _ no  _ sense. Autobots are Autobots.”

“And what makes an Autobot, Ratchet?” the doctor asked, putting a hand on his chin as a familiar gleam came to his eye.

Ratchet looked away, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. “Autobots are--”  _ Optimus,  _ was all his processor had to offer. After all, why had he even joined the Autobot faction in the first place, so long ago? Optimus (well, Orion then, he supposed) had been the one with the determination and the will to make things better. He’d looked at Cybertron and seen the cracks beneath the veneer, and he’d been the only one with morals strong enough to stand by what he believed. If Optimus hadn’t been the one heading the Autobots, Ratchet might not even have joined. 

_ What makes an Autobot?  _ Ratchet couldn’t answer that one easily. What made  _ him  _ an Autobot was Optimus, and he wasn’t about to let his double have that much of a grip on him.

“What makes an Autobot is that we aren’t Decepticons,” he snarled eventually. “We defend those who need it, and we don’t  _ kill  _ people for fun, we don’t force people to kill each  _ other,  _ we don’t fragging  _ dissect people  _ and use their organs for  _ machinery--” _

The other mech put his hand down, picked up a tool again. “Do continue.”

“An Autobot sure as hell wouldn’t let a scrap-afted bastard glitch like you kill anyone else,” Ratchet said coldly.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” the doctor said, chuckling. “But remember, your version of what an Autobot is  _ did.” _

Ratchet wanted nothing more than to beat his double’s helm in until his optics couldn’t be told apart from his brain module. He looked away, struggling not to let his emotions catch up with him; this wasn’t where he needed to focus. 

“Are you finished with him?” he said instead, nodding at Drift’s body. 

“Not even close.” The doctor walked away from the bloody berth, and came to a stop at Optimus’. Ratchet tensed, freezing into cold terror immediately. “But I can take a break if you want. I’ll be honest, that Matrix has really been calling me.”

“Leave him alone,” Ratchet ordered.

“I  _ know  _ you have emotional connections with him _ .  _ Primus, stop fragging  _ showing  _ it for two minutes and let me get what I want.”

_ “No!  _ Don’t you touch him. I did what you wanted. Look, I  _ killed  _ someone for you. Stay away from Optimus.” Ratchet knew this was probably the most foolish thing he could be saying-- the doctor’s fragging  _ emotional connections  _ fetish was probably  _ saturated  _ with Ratchet’s desperation. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t-- not Optimus, not after everything. 

“You’re misunderstanding who’s in charge,” the doctor snapped. “I’ll do what I like, and once I get this bauble out of your Prime’s chest I’ll call  _ mine  _ and they can have a good long conversation about right and wrong, hm? That is,” he chuckled, “if Lord Prime lets him live that long.”

Ratchet felt his spark twist in a sudden, unnatural worry. For some reason, he had no desire whatsoever to see what Optimus’ double might be like. 

“Tell you what,” Ratchet’s own said, as if he could read his mind, “I’ll comm him right now.”

Ratchet watched, wide-eyed and apprehensive, as the doctor dialed up a code on his wrist and set it to a speaker; obviously he wanted Ratchet to listen, which was  _ sick,  _ he was  _ sick.  _

“Lord Prime,” the doctor said, and his voice went strangely neutral.

There was a long pause, and then Optimus’ voice came out of the speaker, deeper and stranger, a vein of malice running through the undertones, and it was  _ wrong.  _ “I assume you have a reason for interrupting me, Ratchet.”

“The interrogation is going well?” the doctor said, a bit of a gleam coming back into his eyes.

“Do not presume to know what I do with the prisoners,” the Prime-that-wasn’t-Optimus said, a snarling rebuke that both Ratchets flinched at. In the background of the communication, there was sobbing. “Why did you contact me?”

“You’ll never guess who I’ve gotten with the continuity experiment,” the doctor said, his voice harshly delighted. “Your double. Well, one of them. The one closest to you, anyway.”

There was a very, very long pause. Even the crying mech in the background quieted. 

“Does he have the Matrix?” the voice asked, eventually.

“Uncorrupted, unchanged, untainted. It’s here, Prime. What you’ve been looking for.”

“Keep him there,” Prime growled. “I am coming.”

Ratchet couldn’t stop himself from slacking with relief when the communique ended and the terrible,  _ wrong  _ voice stopped sending shoots of horror into his processor. He forced himself to look at Optimus, the  _ real  _ Optimus. 

_ He would never,  _ he told himself.  _ He would never. _

“Well,” the doctor said, clapping his hands together, “that’s goodbye to you, then. He’ll kill you.  _ And  _ your Prime. It’s alright,” he added, holding up a hand. “I’m sure there’s other Ratchets out there to get.”

Ratchet clenched his hands. “So that’s it? You’ll just keep on killing?”

The doctor walked toward him. “Ratchet,” he said softly, “coming from you?”

Ratchet was certain that if Megatron himself appeared in the room, he could not bring himself to hate the mech more than he did the doctor at this moment.

“Would you like to say goodbye?” the mech asked, false sympathy clouding his voice. “Would you like me to wake your Prime up so you can tell him how he’s about to be killed?” He leaned closer. “Would you like to tell him what you did?”

Ratchet roared and ripped his arms forward, the already-buckled berth plating around the restraints breaking as his anger gave him the strength to power through. He grabbed the doctor’s helm, fingers gripping around the chevron, and bashed it downwards, into his knee, over and over. He didn’t stop until his plating was coated with energon and the doctor was limp enough that when Ratchet let him go, he slid to the ground and lay there.

_ I am coming. _

Ratchet reached down and cut the restraints around his legs with his torch hand-tool, and scrambled off the berth. Drift’s slab blocked his way to Optimus-- gritting his dentae, Ratchet pushed it aside, wiped the strangely-colored blood off his hands the best he could, and ran to Optimus’ berth.

“Optimus,” he said, laying a hand on his leader’s chest, and jacking in-- he bypassed the already-wrecked firewalls and interrupted the stasis simulation loop Optimus had been set into. His Prime opened his eyes, and Ratchet began cutting his restraints.

“What--” Optimus said, looking around.

“Optimus, no time,” Ratchet said sharply. “We need to get out of here before. . .” 

The sentence wouldn’t finish itself. Ratchet waved away Optimus’ questioning glance, and looked wildly around for the controls to the spacebridge Drift had come through. 

“Ratchet, are we in danger?” Optimus asked, closing his chest panels. 

“We are,” Ratchet said, after a pause. “But I can get us out.”

“I believe in you, old friend,” Optimus said, still looking around the room in bewilderment. 

Ratchet grabbed at the controls. They weren’t that different from the groundbridge at the base, but there was a key detail that Ratchet locked onto. 

_ The universes are distinct and the separation can be felt.  _

Slowly, Ratchet put his hand into the sensor that made up a large part of the control panel-- the light spilled over his fingers and he gasped. He could feel the world that was behind the spacebridge. This was Drift’s world, he knew, somehow. This was a world of blood and twisted loyalties and horrors that shocked even his capacity to accept the unacceptable; Ratchet looked further and felt a prison planet, home to tortures and merciless cruelty and a presence there, someone worse than even Megatron. Time flitted before Ratchet’s hands and he backed away, gasping. The horrors had floated to the surface, but that was all he wanted to know about this world.

But his glance fell on his double, and sudden hatred rose in him.

_ If anyone deserved that world, it was him.  _ Ratchet’s mind, for one moment, was fully focused on the idea of this perfect revenge. 

But then he remembered the way the other Optimus’ voice had sounded as he promised,  _ I am coming.  _ Ratchet knew that if he spent any time on his double, if he allowed himself to take any revenge, he would be caught. He would be killed.

_ Optimus  _ would be.

_ I didn’t kill someone for you just to let you die,  _ he thought, and turned the dial on the sensor with great effort. The worlds shifted beneath his hands.

“Optimus,” he said slowly, “will you barricade the door?”

Optimus looked at him and nodded silently. 

Ratchet closed his eyes and tried to find the right universe; he felt his way through what seemed like a never-ending parade of them.  _ Infinites,  _ as his double had said. 

There was a crash at the door.

Optimus returned to his side, his eyes wide. “It appears that I blocked the door just in time,” he said.

“Yes,” Ratchet said shortly; the universes were stretching his capacities to the furthest limit. He could barely feel the fear he should have at the idea of the other Prime beating down the door.

Optimus, thankfully, said nothing more; his hands transformed into weapons, the blade and the gun, and his frame tensed next to Ratchet as universes flew underneath Ratchet’s hands.

_ Crash. _

A universe with hints of bright color, humans in mech suits, a horde of Autobots.

_ Crash. _

A universe, heavy and round, clones and time-travel and laughing.

_ Crash. _

A universe that ached with familiarity; this was the one, Ratchet knew now, that the yellow mech had been from. He knew now that the yellow mech had been Bumblebee.

_ Crash.  _ The door was nearly bashed in, the metal warped and the hinges clinging to their last life. There was a snarl of rage that Optimus startled at, looking from the door and back to Ratchet.

“Got it!” Ratchet yelled, and he  _ did--  _ the world beneath his fingers was familiar in all the right ways, it was  _ home.  _ He threw the switch, and the spacebridge swirled open.

“ _ No!”  _ came a roar from the other side of the door, terrifying and animalistic; Ratchet shoved Optimus toward the bridge. 

“Go!” he shouted.

“Not without--”

“It’s you he wants,” Ratchet snapped. “I need to shut this before I come through.  _ Go!” _

Optimus shook his head in a surprising display of fear. “I do not know who that is behind the door, but I will not leave you alone with him,” he said.

Ratchet stared at him. “Optimus.  _ Go.  _ I promise I will come through.”

There was a pause, too long for Ratchet’s liking. He growled in desperation; Optimus didn’t  _ understand,  _ he hadn’t  _ seen--  _ he didn’t know what Ratchet had done. He didn’t know why the spacebridge  _ had  _ to be closed for good.

“Go!” he shouted, and pushed Optimus through.

Optimus fell through the bridge-- Ratchet was stronger than him if the moment of surprise could be utilized. Ratchet snatched up the electric prod that the doctor had used to shock Drift, and waited.

The door burst open, and there he was.  _ Lord Prime,  _ as Ratchet’s double had called him, and it sickened Ratchet to see as much as it filled him with terror. He was more armored than Optimus, his colors were darkened and his angles were sharper, and his eyes blazed with a cruelty Ratchet had only ever seen from--

No. He wouldn’t do this.

“Your Matrix is gone,” he shouted. “And do you know who’s responsible?”

The Prime took a step toward him, his sword unsheathing.

Ratchet locked eyes with him. 

_ “Ratchet,”  _ he hissed, and stuck the prod into the spacebridge controls, sending sparks flying and the smell of burning circuitry into the air. 

He jumped back into the bridge as it sputtered and began to die, hoping against all hope that it would take him home.

The last thing he saw before the whiteness of dimension travel claimed him was the sight of Optimus’ double rounding on his own.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
